Tag: elections

Big day today in the primaries.

Ohio and Florida, of course: but also Illinois, Missouri, and North Carolina. Handicapping: Ohio is… probably Kasich. Missouri is… 50/50 for Cruz. Illinois is up in the air. North Carolina will be a chaotic mess. And Florida? Well, Marco Rubio may or may not win Florida, but nobody can say that he didn’t fight it down to the wire. Sometimes you can’t do anything else.

As for best- or worst-case scenarios: optimum would be for Kasich to win Ohio and Rubio to win Florida, and then have both drop out. Worst case scenario is a full sweep by Trump AND both Kasich and Rubio staying in anyway. Somewhere in the middle would be clarity, and a two- or three-man race. Election won’t be over tonight.

Moe Lane

PS: I love these white-knuckle days, don’t you?

I try not to take sides in the primary…

…but I agree with Leon Wolf: if the below ad is what the Rand Paul campaign has been reduced to, then it is long since past time that the man retires from the Presidential race and concentrates on his Senate re-election. Rand can hope to continue to be exceptionally useful in the Senate. There’s no shame in him staying there, and giving people fits.

Quote of the Day, Slate Abruptly Realizes That Democrats Will Lose Next Year edition.

Slate can’t quite come out and say so, but that’s one heck of an ‘if,’ there:

It’s hard to overstate just how much is on the line for the Democratic Party in getting its “Rising American Electorate” numbers up. It was enthusiasm and turnout among these groups that pushed President Obama to two Electoral College victories—and, in turn, reoriented the Democratic Party to cater to these demographics, who then didn’t show up in nearly as strong numbers when Obama wasn’t on the ballot. The Big Question of 2016 Politics, ever since it became clear that Clinton would pursue a strategy tailored to retaining the Obama coalition, has been whether Clinton could turn out these groups in similar numbers. If she can’t, then the 2016 election will look less like the 2008 and 2012 ones and more like the 2010 and 2014 ones. Meaning: the Democratic Party will be almost completely wiped out of American political leadership above the municipal level.

I add the last line not because I think that the GOP is going to get that lucky – more’s the pity; metaphorically burning the Democratic party down its metaphorical roots might actually get all the Angry Left rot metaphorically purged from it – but because I think that my readers deserve a treat.  And a reminder: whatever our problems are, they pale in comparison to the Democrats’.  I mean, at least we’re not required to ignore objective reality itself during this cycle…

So my home county has no elections today…

…and the town in which I live is scattering throughout three counties, but only officially part of one.  The one that I don’t live in.  So it’s entirely possible that I actually have no elected officials set over me.  Which means that I could very well declare myself to be a baron, swear fealty to the Howard County Executive, and thus end up getting the Low and Middle Justice over my neighborhood.

Not that I’d take that job.

Portugal decides to… ignore their country’s parliamentary elections?

Wait, how would that even work?

Portugal has entered dangerous political waters. For the first time since the creation of Europe’s monetary union, a member state has taken the explicit step of forbidding eurosceptic parties from taking office on the grounds of national interest.

Anibal Cavaco Silva, Portugal’s constitutional president, has refused to appoint a Left-wing coalition government even though it secured an absolute majority in the Portuguese parliament and won a mandate to smash the austerity regime bequeathed by the EU-IMF Troika.

Continue reading Portugal decides to… ignore their country’s parliamentary elections?

Apres Debbie Wasserman Schultz le deluge*.

Here’s a fun question to ask Democrats upset about the Debbie Wasserman Schultz / Tulsi Gabbard flap:

For most debate viewers and Democratic voters, the Gabbard flap, if it registered at all, was little more than a sideshow. But among Democratic officials and strategists, the dust-up was an embarrassing public spectacle—a boiling-over of long-simmering frustrations and resentments within the party hierarchy at a highly inopportune moment.

Continue reading Apres Debbie Wasserman Schultz le deluge*.

(New Jersey-SEN Primary) Are you ready for… Bob Torricelli?

Because they’re talking about it! “Former Sen. Bob Torricelli downplayed rumors Sunday that he might mount a Democratic primary challenge to Sen. Robert Menendez (D-N.J.), who is fighting federal corruption charges.” And why are there such rumors? Because Senator Menendez is in a fascinatingly complex situation vis-a-vis this administration. On the one hand, Menendez is indeed fighting federal corruption charges. On the other hand, Sen. Menendez is apparently legitimately appalled at this administration’s Middle Eastern policy, particularly with regard to Iran. And on the gripping hand… that’s how bad the bench is for New Jersey Democrats, huh? The only worse choice would former governor Jon Corzine, and he’s probably thinking about running, too. I mean, Bob Torricelli’s thinking about it, right?

Before you grin too much: name a good New Jersey Republican challenger. For that matter, Bob Menendez isn’t even up for election again until 2018. Which is why this post isn’t on RedState: right now this is beyond speculation.  But still. I’d love to cover that primary.

Don’t be afraid to get it wrong.

Interesting post here from Sean Trende on how gingerly the pollsters and analysts can treat anything like actual analysis. And believe you me: they do, in fact, worry themselves sick on the subject.  I was struck by this bit in particular:

…this fear of getting it wrong is probably creating a similar herding effect among analysts. In late 2014, Nate Cohn of the New York Times could claim that he wasn’t aware of a single theory for why polls would be biased toward Democrats in 2014. Given how Republicans outperformed the polls in that election, there should have been one (and in fairness, FiveThirtyEight subsequently published a piece that included just such a theory).

Part of the reason the theory didn’t exist might be that journalists and political scientists tend to be left-of-center, so they subconsciously resisted creating hypotheses that favored Republicans. But even people on the right shied away from constructing a pro-Republican electoral theory. A likely explanation for that hesitancy is that, after the unskewed polls debacle of 2012, few wanted to risk suggesting that the polls would be biased toward Democrats, and chance suffering the humiliation that would follow if they were proved wrong. There is safety in numbers for analysts as well.

Continue reading Don’t be afraid to get it wrong.

Tweet/Quote of the Day, 2015 Is Pretty Much A Silly-Season Year In The 2016 Election Cycle edition.

This is insightful (which is, of course, code for “I’ve been saying this for a while now myself”):

One reason I don’t sweat Trump too much. What’s the point? He’s not going to make it to the actual primaries anyway.

Bernie Sanders pulls in 10K for his “I’m not Hillary Clinton!” rally.

As you may have guessed, I am not overly concerned about the fact that Sen. Bernie Sanders (Socialist, VT) got ten thousand people in Madison, Wisconsin this evening: “Democratic presidential candidate Sen. Bernie Sanders drew 10,000 supporters, the largest crowd of his campaign thus far, according to reports.” …they got nowhere else to go, after all. Now, if I was on Hillary Clinton’s staff, I would be concerned. Perhaps even overly.  Definitely overly. Because that particular Democratic crowd is being fueled by a blend of several different things, none of which Hillary Clinton can provide. She may end up spending a good deal more money than she expected to crush this upstart of hers.

Continue reading Bernie Sanders pulls in 10K for his “I’m not Hillary Clinton!” rally.